"What are they doing? Why do they come here?"
DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978)
Directed by George Romero
I saw the first two George Romero zombie classics in the wrong order. I can't say my age for sure, but I know that the first time I watched "Dawn of the Dead' I had yet to see "Night of the Living Dead" so I was confused, disoriented and horrified. The movie begins at a TV station in a state of total chaos. Clearly, there is some kind of national emergency that is spiraling out of control. Some pundits on the television are arguing furiously about how to deal with the situation, while the staff of the TV station are rapidly abandoning their posts. Cut to a S.W.A.T. team storming a building where the residents have refused to leave. Within minutes, an innocent man gets his head blown clean off by an insane racist cop while another man staggers back to his family and when his wife embraces him he takes a huge gory bite out of her shoulder. What the hell was going on?
So that's how I was introduced to the cinematic world of George Romero's zombie apocalypse, and I've been a fan ever since. As the film progressed, I quickly caught on to the basic situation but never lost my sense of fear or tension. Much is made of "Dawn of the Dead" as a social satire or black comedy and that element is definitely there , but on my first viewing I experienced it purely as a violent and unpredictable horror film. I will say, however, that the fundamental satirical conceit, that the mall walking zombies represent a sort of all encompassing, dehumanising consumerism has proven eerily prescient. Go to a mall, especially first thing in the morning, and see if you disagree.
One of the all time great horror films and a masterpiece of subversive genre cinema.
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